


Adagio

by Eithe



Series: Ameneth Lavellan [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Fluff, I Don't Even Know, Panic Attacks, Schmoop, Spoilers, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 11:44:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3066641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eithe/pseuds/Eithe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the ball at the Winter Palace, Ameneth Lavellan is feeling not at all herself.  Solas is feeling a little too much himself.  They find the middle ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adagio

**Author's Note:**

> This is named 'Once Upon a Dream' in my google docs and the resulting fic is exactly as ridiculous and full of schmoop as that title implies. I play fast and loose with basically everything because this is comfort blanket fic. Adagio is set in vaguely the same universe as Perspective; Ameneth seems vastly less together because we're in her head this time.
> 
> If the panic attack tag worries you, it is both mild and short, but please be mindful of your health.
> 
> Credit for a lot of the elvhen I use goes to fenxshiral's project elvhen (http://fenxshiral.tumblr.com/tagged/project-elvhen); it's a wonderful resource. Any weird conlang mistakes are entirely my own.

The day after the ball, Josephine told her, will be quiet. No matter what transpired - and as it happened, that was quite a bit - the day after does not deviate from routine. Everyone will retire to their accommodations, whether those be houses in town, hired rooms, or - for those lucky few whom the Empress has decided to favor - a suite in the guest wing of the Winter Palace. They will eat a large breakfast - although it won’t be called that, since there is no fasting to break after hours of eating and drinking and dancing and the graceful, artful backbiting with occasional backstabbing that is the Game. And then they all sleep off their excesses for the rest of the day and following night.

Presumably the whole thing then repeats within a week or so, the mere thought of which makes Ameneth's skin crawl with revulsion. She wants to leave Halamshiral immediately. The Orlesian Court is a deadfall trap waiting to crush her if she moves wrong, and she wants out as soon as possible, preferably while she has all her limbs intact. She wants to start for Skyhold as soon as the music ends, and once her people are safe, she will have the leisure to bathe until she manages to scrub off the metaphorical stench that is making her skin crawl and the all-too-real perfumes that make her throat burn and itch.

But no, Josephine said, it would be impolite to leave so soon - and worse, would send a message about the strength of their alliance with Orlais. Celine will need Inquisition backing to solidify her hold, especially after the unprecedented move of elevating Briala to the nobility. Few will dare to protest openly, with the field suddenly clear of contenders for Celine’s throne and the Inquisition led by an elf, but there can be no appearance of weakness.

They must, if anything, make a show of a stronger bond and greater confidence than either side truly feels - which is why Ameneth, along with most of the Inquisition’s delegation, are noisily settled in opulent jewel-box rooms, that everyone will know they have the Empress’s favor and her gratitude for the service the Inquisition has done her.

The rooms Ameneth has been provided, as the Inquisitor, are ridiculous. Rooms, plural; a receiving room and a sitting room and a bedroom and a little alcove with a desk in it, a washroom and a water closet (kept separate), and another door she does not check, because she can feel the hysterical laughter bubbling up in her throat.

This is Halamshiral, the end of the journey, as ruled by _shemlen_ ; she’s locked in a beautiful cage decorated with mirrors and gilding. Any single one of the furnishings is worth enough to feed her entire clan for months.

Ameneth throws herself face-first onto the ridiculous bed, frothing with lace, and sinks down a full handspan before she settles onto something weight-bearing. She burrows in deeper, closing her eyes tight. She cannot look at this. It is impossible, and horrifying, and so far from everything she’s ever known that she wants to cry, and that is ridiculous. It’s over now, she thinks, it’s OVER, why are you upset NOW?

Her next breath comes in on a trembling gasp and her muscles wind tight to the bone. Her body tries to curl in, but she forces herself still and focuses on the breath. The breath, not the shuddering. The terror will pass, just like it has every other time. Breathe. Just breathe. Exhale to make room, slow inhale, slow, feel the breath, push the air out with your stomach. Again.

The shaking stops, after a time. Impossible to guess how long. She feels absurd and lonely and nakedly vulnerable. It doesn’t matter what is expected; she cannot stay in this ridiculous room, not alone. No one is meant to live like this. Off comes the finery of the ball, garments that make her feel like a stranger to herself. Who is she to dress up and pretend she belongs here, where people play with lives and the fate of nations like it’s of no more import than a game of jackstraws? Once she’s dressed in a tunic and leggings - new, on Josephine’s insistence, but simple, clean of ornamentation and implication - she feels more like herself. The cloak is a necessary precaution. Without her fine clothes and the Inquisition’s colors, there are too many people who might react to her vallaslin with alarm or violence. Halamshiral, ironically, is not kind to elves.

 

 

Solas answers her knock with his shirt half-off, and that’s - well. Normally there’s a shivery feeling in her gut for an hour after, at least, but it seems to have been usurped by butterflies. Distractions are clearly a good thing, and the breadth of his shoulders has always been rather distracting.

“Vhenan?” he prompts, opening the door wider to offer a tacit invitation. She ducks into the room and is warmed by the way he checks the hall behind her before they’re shut away in a - thankfully - smaller, more sensible room than what she was offered, fire-warm and automatically safe even to her panic-frazzled mind just because of who’s in it.

“The suite they gave me is absurd and I am not sleeping there. Can I stay here? I’ll sleep on the floor, or I can go ask Dorian, he’d probably let me have his floor if you’d rather not -” She’s distantly aware that she’s babbling, but for all she doesn’t feel the fear at present, the animal part of her brain still thinks there’s something to flee, and the rest is still trying to keep her eyes above his collarbone.

“Uncomfortable with the extremities of comfort the Empress has seen fit to bestow?”

“Solas,” she says, “you could have fit my entire clan in there, including the halla and the aravels. It was HORRIFYING. No one needs that much space.”

He laughs, quietly, and - yes, this can be a joke. He does not tell his secrets. With some, though, he can keep his silence and still let her see the shape of them. He was comfortable tonight - more than comfortable, it was familiar enough to be amusing. Not for the first time, she wants to grab his face in her hands and stare into those familiar, beloved eyes and demand to know who he is, how he can still be a stranger to her after so much time and all that has passed between them.

She can’t do that, though, so it will be jokes, instead.

“Also,” she tacks on, and the grin comes easier for his presence, feels real because he makes it real, “I didn’t check one of the doors and I am not entirely convinced someone won’t try to kill me today. Or tonight. I will be dead to the world, I probably wouldn’t even care as long as it was quick.”

“We’ll set wards,” he agrees, eyes narrowing as he considers the room, and - oh. Of course. They’re in Orlais, that is a legitimate concern.

“I can stay?” she asks, to be sure. She tries to ask, always, because he sometimes says ‘wait’ but he’s never said ‘no,’ and the part of her that looks at the shadows his secrets cast worries about that.

His smile is gentle, though, and there’s no hesitation when he answers,

“Of course.”

 

 

There’s something delectably intimate about setting up wards together, both barefoot and barely dressed, braiding their magic together into something stronger than either of them could manage alone. She’s done the same with Keeper Istimaethoriel (and, occasionally, others), but it’s never felt like this. This feels easy, and it shouldn’t; combined workings are more volatile, always, with two different wills pushing at things, sometimes at cross-purposes.

Still. It does feel easy.

She catches herself humming and tries to stop - the Keeper always said it was distracting, but Solas just tilts his head, listening. She nearly loses hold of her end of the wards when he joins in, a quiet harmony that settles just beneath her own.

“Do you hear your spells?” he asks, and - oh, Cole mentioned when he caught her at it that she was harmonizing with the melody of her magic.

She doesn’t hear it, though, not exactly. She reaches for words to describe it and is left frustrated by the lack of vocabulary. They must have had words for this, once - elvhenan was full of wonders, and Solas has said that for the ancient elves magic came as easily as breathing. She finally sighs and shakes her head.

“‘Hear’ is the wrong word.”

“ _Era’harthas_ ,” he suggests, and yes. That is better. It fits right in her mind, soothing the itch of being wordless.

“ _Era’harthan_ ,” she agrees. This time, when the song crests in her magic, she follows its tides, lets herself sing with it. That’s what’s different - this is like dancing together, not work at all. She catches Solas watching only once, but the look in his eyes makes her feel aglow down to her marrow.

 

 

He offers her the bed. It’s very sweet and also entirely not what she wants.

“If you’re worried about waking up with me doing my best impression of Arbor Blessing, just put a wall of pillows in the way.” It’s a reasonable suggestion, she thinks. There are an excessive number of pillows. Building a barricade wouldn’t even take half of them.

He doesn’t look reassured.

“Solas,” she says, and he finally meets her eye. It’s easy to step closer when he looks so off-balance, easy to reach out. It’s the first time he’s looked like that since they got here - like he's mortal, vulnerable, something she can touch. She’s felt that way the whole time (never sure whether to be relieved or sad that no one ever notices). She puts a hand on his cheek and he leans into it, sighing, tension draining down. She sways in for a quick peck, just a reminder - I’m here, I love you.

He usually responds with hunger that says it’s been too long since he’s been touched with love, and that always makes her heart ache, makes her hold a little tighter. Tonight, he returns the kiss sweetly, softly; he draws her in close and coaxes her lips apart. She couldn’t say when her eyes flutter closed or how they end up on the bed. She’s too caught up; he’s always overwhelming, when he lets himself respond (only ever respond, never initiate), but normally it’s a flash-flood, dizzying and a little terrifying, there and then gone. Tonight, he isn’t going anywhere - where would he go? it’s his room - and there’s no hurry.

They settle in and he doesn’t barricade himself away. He lets her curl close. The kisses turn lazy, then slow, then cease, but his arms stay around her, strong and warm.

She feels so safe. Sleep comes easily, and she isn’t afraid at all.

 

 

She’s still beside him in the Fade, the ghostly impression of the Winter Palace still around them. A little of that wild, endlessly self-assured light from the ball is back in his eyes. He isn’t hiding it, and it’s delightful and heady, another little hint at things he won’t speak aloud. He holds out a hand to her.

“ _Nuveninan elu’eremah_.” _I want to show you something_.

It’s not like before, at Adamant, when she recognized the language but the meaning slipped through her fingers like smoke. He wants her to understand. Here and now, that is somehow enough.

“What is it?”

He smirks, brow raised, glances down at his proffered hand, long fingers beckoning.

“Alright,” she laughs, “whatever you want.”

She takes his hand, and the vague, misty impression of a hallway shivers, shudders, stretches, _shines_.

He’s described this before; crystal spires, and in the distance, she can see impossible monuments, things that could never support their own weight. Flying palaces. She laughs in delight, turning to clasp both his hands in her own. His outline has gone hazy, as if he is suddenly less certain of who he is and where he stands, but his eyes are the same, intent on hers.

This is wonderful, a miracle, but things become easier in dreams, and all she really wants is to be with him. She is a terrible First, and her priorities are all wrong, and maybe she’ll feel guilty in the morning.

Probably not.

“What did you want to show me?”

He grins - grins! - boyish and open and young with it, and tugs gently on their joined hands; she follows him through a dizzying labyrinth until they find themselves in what can only be a ballroom, although that is far too tame and simple a word for it. It’s nothing like the grand hall they were in just hours ago. The ceiling sparkles with constellations, little stars that orbit and flow between the vaulted arches spun of gossamer, and there are other wonders pressing in on every side. She’s afraid to look too closely, afraid to touch any of it even here, in a dream of a near-forgotten memory.

This is what they had.

No wonder he looks down on the Dalish; she feels shame dragging her lungs lower in her chest, but he presses their foreheads together. Too close for sight, but the shape of him is familiar, even if scent makes no sense in the Fade. He makes her feel grounded and solid again, and that’s when her ears catch the music.

Oh.

The _music_.

She’s never heard it this clearly before, but it makes perfect sense. The music was magic was music - they were the same thing, twined together, inseparable. He lets her have a long moment to recompose herself, then squeezes her hand.

“ _Alas’niras sal ar_.” _Dance with me_.

He said the same thing earlier, with the same tone - almost peremptory, so certain of his reception, though he has always been so wary of initiating anything. Perhaps that’s why he was certain; he knows she wants him because he so frequently lets her do all the chasing. Who _are_ you? she thinks again, and bites it back. She is marked for Dirth’amen for a reason. She understands the keeping of secrets, and Solas is entitled to his, even if she is greedy for them, starving for them.

Personal is private. She can ask questions about everything under the sun - any of the People would understand that as a mark of respect, an acknowledgment of superior knowledge - but not about him, not about his past. Those are for him to offer, or not, as he chooses.

She squeezes his hand in turn.

“ _Sulevin._ ” _Certainly_.

So the music plays, and they dance, and there are shadow-dancers around them, but they remain only the vaguest of outlines. Part of her, the part that hears faint snatches of spell-songs and knows there should be more, insists that this memory could be sharper, that if she twisted the Anchor’s power just so, she could see all of it.

But this is what he wants to show her. This much and no more. So she smiles up into blazing eyes and they dance as they could never have done on a balcony in a court where she is an upstart heretic and he is a nameless apostate. They dance steps she would have sworn her body did not know, steps that Thedas has not seen in generations and may never see again, but he leads them with perfect assurance and somehow her feet follow.

They dance.

When she wakes, she is smiling.


End file.
